Sharks in Space

up your constitution. Yep. Yeah. And we we tend to just go around circles around each other in the break room, which is fun. So it is. It's an exciting time and it's also in the lobby. We're not making that up now, We're not making that up at all. Um. It actually premieers Sunday, July thirty one on Discovery Channel for folks who are really excited about sharks, and so we thought that we would do a little homage to sharks this week and um and talk about how great

they are. Cool because the week itself was always pretty awesome growing up because you turn on Discovery and then they're just like NonStop shark attacks, I was gonna say, ma'am, and violence no matter where you look, and your parents can't say anything about it because there's sharks. Yeah, it's

educational yea. And sharks truly are amazing creatures. But the one you know, that, the one thing you don't think about as much are sharks in space because it just seems odd, yeah, or that NASA would it all care what a shark is up to or how a shark works. It just seems like these are totally different ends of the spectrum. Yeah, but as we know, there are definitely parallels between the Great Blue Ocean and the sky's above us,

right right. Uh, So to that point, we're going to talk about how sharks have informed NASA and and also how they have informed other areas of our lives and uh and why Michael Phelps needs to give us shark a big hug next time he sees one. Well, yeah, for starters, there is there's not really need such thing as a as a space shark. There of course no sharks flying around in outer space. Um. But but dog, yes,

but not a shark, yes, mummified dog. Right. But as as for sharks, we we have a wonder for a long time whether or not the moon affects them, even if even though there are no sharks on the moon, people have always wondered, what is the lunar cycle affect the way sharks behaved? As it can? Can we can we base their feeding uh uh, preferences of their ferocity on what the moon is doing? Yeah, that's true. Um. And we know that a full moon signals breeding and

migratory practices. Um. And it also influences the tides because the tidle forces add its maximum, so you see a lot more intense feeding behavior at that time, right. And in tracking shark movement, scientists have observed large congregations of sharks during specific lunar cycles as well as intensified feeding habits. So we've got NASA definitely has its I on sharks. Yeah and um and this is just one example right there.

There are a lot of things that NASA has been doing with sharks because some of their technology actually is very helpful in tracking sharks. And these are yeah, these are definitely more concrete than well, maybe the maybe the moon has some sort of influence on their activity. Um. The the one that really um first of all, as far as just tracking them goes UM. We we do use satellites to track sharks because some of these are are in either they're endangered species or they're just species

we want to learn more about. UM. So we have two kinds of tracking devices that we attached to the sharks fins. We have smart position only tags also called spots, and we have pop up satellite archival tags or pats. Spots attached to a shark's dorsal fins and upload location data to a satellite every time the animal surfaces, you know, so every time it comes up to eat a surfer or something, or to or to attack, Richard dry fuss

Uh injects in you know, pats. However, record water temperature, water pressure, and light levels before detaching from the sharks fins at a set time. So so this just sort of hangs out with the shark shadows. The shark sees what the shark is up to and what kind of environments it's been happening, and then after a certain time

detaches to go report back. Yeah, so whether or not the shark knows it, it's in business with NASA and UM aggregating a bunch of data for the pat device floats back to the surface after it's through, and then it transmits the data to the satellite. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's a second method to which I think is

really cool. Um, this is an algorithm. Yes, Now, this is pretty fascinating because all right, you look up at the night sky and even I mean even if you're trained somewhat in astronomy and you can, you know, or even if you're you can, you know, you can pick out every constellation and you can point to different star systems. You have to admit, a really clear night sky can be really confusing because there's just so many stars and you're just you know, trying to make sense of it all.

You cannot see them from Nakodaye all of them, right, So NASA, of course has developed an algorithm to help to track this that can know that can allow a computer to look at the sky and identify what's going on based on this, um, you know, to to to the lame and seemingly chaotic array of stars. Yeah. And this was originally created by Edward J. Groth, and he was using this to try to map the intimidating star fields Hubble would uncover falling it's launching. So just so

everybody understands the context there. But again there's this correlation with stars and with sharks. Yeah, because the whole the whole deal is, we're really interested in whale sharks, you know, we want to know which ones which, what are they doing. This is species that we would like to to stick around for a while and we would like to learn more about them. But how do you tell them apart? Right? Um, Well, it turns out that the spots on their their their bodies,

especially prominent on their heads and their their head region. Uh, they're all different. These are like the fingerprints of a of a whale shark, so it's unique to each one, right, But to the naked eye, it doesn't make any sense. It's just like, oh, there's another giant fish with spots

on its head. But we can actually use the same program, the same algorithm that's that's intended to make sense of the night sky, and it can make sense of the spots on a whale shark and actually identify individual whale sharks to the point where just random divers who encounter a whale shark can take a picture of it and

then they can send it in Um. To the Echocean, which is e E C O C E a n Echo Ocean Whale Shark Photo Identification Laboratory, and they're able to through this through these users submitted to photos keep tabs on, um, you know, close to two thousand whale sharks around the world, which is really cool because it's very much a public project as well. Yeah. Um. And also the algorithm has been adapted to track the animals North American populations as well, Yeah, using the unique whisker

markings on their muzzles. Yeah, so that's that's from NASA actually. Um. So it's really interesting that they are trying to learn about the stars and they were able to use this to try to learn a little bit more about our own environment. Right. And it's another great page from the whole book of of space technology, improving life or improving research on the planet itself, you know, hand me down technology,

but but very useful. This is another interesting NASA connection that was a surprise to me but actually has to do with Julia Child. Julia Child, Yeah, the famed chef TV, one of the first but to just wonderful spirited woman who who assured the American Palette into the twentieth century. The reason really that we have to suffer through all these more annoying TV chef today on various reality shows. Right, possibly, yes, except she was nice. She was she was nice, and

she she Calaroche Booth Vignon that was awful. But you know, she she has a lot of that she contributed to our society. But people I think are pretty familiar with the fact that she was a spy of sorts um and this is from NPRS. The lady was a spy. Julia Child worked for the OSS, which is a precursor to the CIA. It was assigned to solve a problem for the U s Naval forces during World War Two.

Sharks would bump into explosives that were placed underwater, setting them off and warning the German U boats that they were intended to sink. So they asked her to work on a recipe as it were, of shark repellent and um and together they all cooked up the shark repellent and that was used to cope the explosives. So the shark repellent recipe was then later used to protect astronauts and space capsules landed in shark infested waters. Yeah, because

especially like the Apollopope program and everything. Um, you know, they're returning to earthen the capsule capsule is landing in the open ocean um in many cases, and you would rather you're highly trained astronauts not get eaten by a shark immediately. No, no, no, not after all that training. That's just that that would be a big bummer. And

the Soviets were very interested in this as well. I read a like a nineteen seventies something NASA report on the Soviet interest and shark repell and there was you know, there's a lot of interest and a lot of tests and a lot of sort of oh, I don't know if it works, so maybe it works enough, And generally it would decided that it at least did worked, it worked enough to use it, you know, like it was better than nothing. Say, there was no other alternatives, so

no other alternates. Um, so, actually sharks have taught us a lot, and definitely through bio mimicry as well. Yeah, not just lessons in how to avoid them and how to keep them from eating us, but yeah, we can look at the shark and say, hey, that is an excellent design. What can we learn from this evolution home design. Yeah, and it turns out that their skin is of particular interest first because it's able to move through water really quickly, right,

and second because it keeps bacteria at a minimum. Yeah. The skin itself has these consists of these tiny tooth like scales that prevents small eddies and vortices from forming, which can slow you down. So it's it's so Speedo was instantly interesting. Yeah. Yeah, and this is so cool because they what they discovered is that that friction is different over different parts of the shark's body. So the skin on the shark, the texture changes to better manage

the flow of water. Huh. Yeah. And Speedo of course was like, oh hey, we could apply this, we can make some money off of this. Yeah. And it was actually when this first made the rounds and the news, there were some people that were like, is this really fair that people can wait because they was, you know, shaving some considerable time if you were wearing like a

full shark skin body suit. Where I think at the actual name that this Peto product is a fast skin one word, um, and I don't know, there's so there's I can kind of get some of that argument, you know, it's like can if they're they're improving their performance purely through this awesome outfit. I mean maybe maybe I'm just putting this out and maybe all competitive swimming should be done naked, because then it's well, you know, Greek Olympic style. Yeah,

Olympic style. Okay, So I mean I would definitely think that viewership would go up. Yeah, yeah, Um, it's a possibility. I don't know. Maybe if they you know, to to get around the TV sensors, maybe that they just dyed the water like a real murky color and then it would be you know, instantly, you know, covering any potential nudity. They would show up right, you know, just to to ratch it up the fun factor. They could put sharks

in the water while the naked swimmers. Yeah, but no, I mean they really the suit I think made a big difference. It's a three percent improvement in swimming speed due to the original shark skin suit, which likely contributed to the fact of the swimming medals one in the two thousand Olympics were one by athletes wearing speedos fast skin suits. Um and then also those some of the

swimmers broke thirteen of fifteen world records. That's that's I mean, when you're talking about a tenth of a second here, I mean that is that's that's that's a huge difference in this sport. Um So Speedo has made further amount of occasions of fat skin suit based on continued research and it now has something like a four percent reduction in friction. Well and the sharks of course getting no credit,

yeah none, yeah, yeah for you guys. Um, we've we've used but we've also used the sharks skin technology for other things. Um, we've been able to use this technology to create a fast traveling ship holes that also deter the attachment of underwater organisms, you know, like whatnot. And m Australia's Biopower Systems has been working on a really

cool shark inspired innovation. Uh. The company hopes to anchor mechanical fins based on you know, the shark's body in the middle of sea currents in order to generate hydro electric power. So it's kind of like a wind meal, except yeah, in the ocean, and it looks like a giant you know, whale, giant shark fit that is going

to scare the pants off of someone. It's just in a boat having a nice leisurely day on the ocean, or or scare the fast skin body suit off of someone happens to you can just go over for the naked thing here. Yeah, yeah, all right, we'll chew on that. Yeah, we'll just leave on the naked note. Yea to chew on that while we do a quick break, and we'll be back right after that. This presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow and we're back all right.

I know you got some email there, Yeah, it's time for a little listener mail. We actually quite a bit um the other podcast we recorded this week with the electronic music one, which went a little along. Starting to get to to read some of the wonderful comments and emails were received from everyone, but I have a handful here. First, let's hear from j from Arkansas at Ja writes them. Hi, Robert and Julie, longtime listening, huge fan of your podcasting blog.

I appreciate you covering the method of loki uh. This of course was discussed in our Memory power eliso UM. I have found it unusually helpful and extremely entertaining. I can definitely identify with Julie's comment on how the very premise of how this method works causes her to conjure up dreamlike situations, which of course make them more memorable. I am a very visual person and have adopted this

memory approach almost daily since listening to your podcast. I have used it to memorize the original Thirteen Colonies, numerous shopping lists, and also to wow friends by memorizing lists of twenty plus random words in a very short period of time. Most recently, I have used this method to memorize all of the U S presidents in order. There were definitely some colorful images generated to memorize that list.

Uh and he gives the example of puke cannon for Buchanan and a tea glass that continually refills itself for fillmore. Thanks again and keep up a great work. Well, that was awesome to hear somebody take the method of Looky the Memory Palace and start ramming it into their life on a basis. Yeah, I'm still using it myself. Yeah yeah, would you use it for last some appointments that I needed to make? Uh? So yeah? Cool? Um. Here is

another listener email, and this is from Molly. Molly right in and says, hey, guys, just finished listening to your Space Religion podcast. Interesting. My immediate thoughts when you mentioned designing a religion Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Hyland. Granted, this is kind of the opposite of what you mentioned in this case of Martian who is really human but raised as a Martian by Martians, comes to Earth and designs a religion. Here excellent book if you haven't read it.

Interesting thought provoking ideas about the nature and need of religion and the nature of humans at any rate. I gave the pot guest loved the mentions of my favorite books, music movies, for instance, a shout out to Doune in this one. Um, and then she also mentioned Robert Anton Wilson as being particularly interesting along these lines. Uh so, yeah, I have actually not read Stranger in the Strange Line. It's it's definitely on the list, but your summer reading

list maybe I don't know. My reading list is out of control. Yeah, I've seen that stack of books in your dusk But but no, I was really, uh really pleased with some of the feedback we got on this because we actually we didn't get any like crazy grumpy feedback from I think anyone, like everybody that has something to say. It was you all along the lines of oh, I think I think you know space and religion means this.

I think it means that, and several people wrote in with the examples of of space religions from science fiction. I think somebody on Twitter mentioned the religion that shows up in the Warhammer forty thousand universe, which is uh a gaming tabletop gaming kind of universe. But there's definitely a lot of a lot of ideas that are brought together in that regarding what a science fiction interplanetary species religion would consist of. Um. So it was a pleasure

to hear all that. Yeah, and I think that we are fortunate to have such a thoughtful audience with a lot of moxie. I might add moxie mind blowers out there. I'm gonna read just one quick one here before we close, And this is from James responding to our Funnier Dive podcast, which we also we receive a lot of cool stuff um later later, but that he just wanted to throw in some some quick funny words and he said, supple

pork loin, I love that one and toot. So he also said that anything with loin in it is going to be pretty funny tender loin loincloth, and and yeah it's it's a funny shop, pork shop. Yeah. All right. So there you have it. If you have anything you would like to add, anything you would like to share with us, you can find us on Twitter and Facebook. We are Blow the Mind on both of those feet, and you can also drop us a line at blow

the Mind at how stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow.